1. The Republic of Korea government, led by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, is seeking to become a Party to the Food Assistance Convention (FAC) with the aim to help provide food to developing countries for humanitarian purposes and promote global food security, and to address the issue concerning structurally oversupplied rice in the ROK.

※ The FAC, brought into force in July 1968, is comprised of 14 Parties, including the US, Japan and the EU, which have pledged a combined 3.32 billion US dollars in food assistance for 2017.

2. The ROK’s bill calling for an FAC membership, worked out through intra-governmental consultations, was passed at the 38th Cabinet meeting on August 29, 2017. The domestic procedure, including the ratification of the bill by the National Assembly, will be completed within the year.

※ Upon the completion of the domestic procedure, a membership application should be filed with and approved by the FAC Secretariat, followed by the submission of the relevant documents to the UN Secretariat.

3. After it becomes an FAC Party, the ROK government will increase humanitarian assistance to vulnerable brackets in developing countries suffering from food shortages, which, in turn, will help enhance the international standing of the responsible country that plays an active role in the efforts to resolve common issues of the international community.

° In particular, the ROK plans to offer in 2018 some 50,000 tons of home-grown rice, worth 46 billion won, to developing countries via the World Food Programme (WFP). The government, after reviews at the interagency meeting on foreign grants on May 2, 2017, and the meeting of the Committee for International Development Cooperation on June 30, 2017, included the project plan in its budget bill for 2018.

4. If the government of the ROK, which is facing a structural oversupply of rice, offers 50,000 tons of rice in assistance, its effect will be nearly equivalent to that from idling 10,000 hectares of rice paddies, thereby helping greatly stabilize the rice supply.

° In 2018, when its first rice aid plan will be implemented, the government will select five rice recipient countries out of those to be recommended by the WFP, an assistance-specialized agency, after a review of urgent relief needs and the potential for international cooperation, and will provide each of them with 5,000-15,000 tons of rice.


* unofficial translation